Situational Analysis : Teacher Education and Professional Development in Afghanistan

The Afghanistan Government has identified the professional development of teachers as a critical part of re-establishing the country’s human capital and economy. In May 2002 a Comprehensive Needs Assessment (CNA) 1 of the education sector was conducted together with the Afghan Interim Administration (AIA) by a team of professionals from the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). One of the key recommendations of this report was support to teacher professional development. More recently in 2004, the Ministry of Education has released a number of education policy documentsoutlining their priorities. Teacher training is a key component of all education programmes for the Afghan Government. The most recent national constitution of Afghanistan (1382) 3 stated that education was the right of all children and that the government would be responsible for providing basic education (that is up to grade 9) to all children of Afghanistan. All these documents highlight the importance and needs within the teacher-training sector, however, until the beginning of 2004, activities and programmes remained relatively autonomous of each other. The Afghanistan Teacher Education Programme (TEP) supported in part by Creative Associates is the first concerted effort on behalf of all donors in the teacher training sector to develop a coordinated and integrated response to assist the MoE in achieving its goals for teacher development.